Tailings ponds a toxic legacy of Alberta’s oilsands

The scarecrows and the shotgun blasts are meant to scare off any birds that may instinctively alight on the ponds and their top layers of residual oil.

The ponds — some of the largest in the world — now cover 176 square kilometres and hold enough liquid to fill the equivalent of 390,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. According to Alberta Environment, if dikes, berms, beaches and other pond infrastructure are included, the footprint extends to 220 square kilometres.

That’s 10 times larger than 20 years ago.

“And yet there is no immediate solution to all the problems they create,” says analyst Erin Flanagan of the Pembina Institute, a Calgary-based environmental NGO.

The tailings ponds sit on an important migratory bird pathway used by millions of geese, ducks, swans, loons and dozens of other species flying north in the spring and south in the fall. Since from the air one body of water looks like another and some of the ponds can be the largest bodies of water around, the birds easily mistake a soup of contaminants for a freshwater lake. This is especially true in spring, when other bodies of water are still frozen but the tailings ponds are too loaded with chemicals to completely ice over.

But the scarecrows and noise didn’t work very well in April 2008 when 1,600 ducks died in a Syncrude tailings pond. Syncrude was found guilty of breaking two environmental laws and fined $3 million. The images of oil-soaked, dying ducks flashed around the world and brought the size and scale of the land scarred by oilsands extraction and the deadly tailings ponds to international attention.

Now Syncrude has another blot on its record. In early August, 30 great blue herons died after touching down on a dugout near a pumphouse on Syncrude’s Mildred Lake mining site. According to Syncrude, there was no deterrent system in place. The Alberta Energy Regulator has opened an investigation and ordered Syncrude to develop a wildlife mitigation plan.

The rapid development of oilsands projects over the past 20 years has resulted in myriad of environmental impacts on the surrounding air, land, water, vegetation and wildlife. The tailings ponds stand out as the greatest threat to the natural environment.

The chemical-laden water can seep into the groundwater and the Athabasca River. A breach of a dike or dam near the river would be disastrous for fish, waterfowl, animals and communities living downstream.

The Peace-Athabasca Delta, located less than 80 kilometres north of oilsands projects, is recognized as one of the most important waterfowl nesting and staging areas in North America, with more than 400,000 waterfowl having been recorded during spring migration. During fall migration, estimates have exceeded one million birds. In all, 214 bird species have been recorded on the delta, many of which pass over or near the oilsands regions.

And since the waters of the Athabasca River eventually flow into the Mackenzie Delta, which flows into the Beaufort Sea — a rich area of biodiversity, from fish to whales to walruses to polar bears — any toxicity travelling down the Athabasca could affect them as well.

In 2009, the Alberta Energy Resources and Conservation Board (ERCB) introduced stricter regulations for the management of tailings. But the tighter rules proved a failure, and the ERCB was forced to admit “that while in the past minable oilsands operators proposed the conversion of fluid tailings into deposits that would become trafficable and ready for reclamation … they did not meet the targets set out in their applications.”

As a result, the ERCB stated, “the inventory of fluid tailings that require long-term containment have grown … And with each successive application and approval, public concerns have also grown.”

The Pembina Institute responded later that year that seven out of nine oilsands operators had submitted plans that did not meet requirements and called on the ERCB to enforce its regulations.

Instead, Alberta Environment drew up new regulations that have yet to be finalized.

Sarah Hechtenthal is a wildlife biologist who works with First Nations that want to bring environmental issues to the attention of regulators and project proponents. She says no one really knows how many birds land on the tailing ponds and then fly away, taking with them the oily, toxic sludge or salty residue that sticks to their feathers.

They could die from the toxins in another area. They could hatch eggs and then succumb to the toxins in their systems. Or they could be eaten by a predator that would also ingest the chemicals. They could be shot by a hunter looking to put something on the dinner table.

“There are so few studies on this that we really don’t know what happens to most birds,” adds Hechtenthal. “And since there are so many birds in the area, it would be impossible to track all of them.”

A paper she presented during the public hearings for Shell’s proposed Jackpine oilsands mine expansion reported that the project would add 24 square kilometres of industrial water bodies to the region.

“We just don’t know enough about the impact of tailings ponds on wildlife, including birds, to keep adding more,” she says.

As far back as 1971, an extensive report on environmental hazards commissioned by the Alberta government cited the tailings ponds as the most dangerous environmental impact.

But creating technology to effectively deal with the hazards of the tailings ponds was expensive, and documents from the 1970s show that industry, with the agreement of government, decided to ignore the warnings.

Forty years later, an expert panel examined the environmental and health impacts of oilsands development for the Royal Society of Canada and concluded: “Technologies for improved tailing pond management are emerging, but the rate of improvement has not prevented a growing inventory of tailings ponds.”

Earlier this year, the Council of Canadian Academies and its scientists concluded that “improvements in environmental performance are not keeping pace with the understanding of impacts or, indeed, the growth of the industry.”

The experts pointed to the fact that Alberta does not regulate treatment of the tailings fluids and as a consequence has a zero water discharge policy. If it did regulate water treatment, the water could then be discharged and the tailings ponds would not continue to swell.

For its part, the oilsands industry has come to recognize that it can’t just ignore tailings ponds. In 2012, 12 oilsands producers including Syncrude, Suncor, Shell, Imperial and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. decided to collaborate to develop technology that would reduce the oilsands’ environmental footprint. Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance was formed, and tailings pond management became one of its top priorities.

At Imperial Oil’s new Kearl project, tailings will be stored in an above-ground area located more than 29 kilometres from the Athabasca River. The settled “mature” fine tailings will be gradually removed and then returned to the mined-out pits. Eventually they will be covered by sand and topsoil to enable a reclaimable area, which will take several decades, containing both upland and wetland features.

The Alberta government is stepping up its plans to contain tailings ponds by introducing a new tailings pond framework in its Lower Athabasca Regional Plan.

But the fact remains that there is still no proven technology that will reduce or minimize the impact of tailings ponds. Most of the ponds that have been in use for decades will continue to grow. More are being planned. And as yet there are no new government regulations in place.

“It’s frustrating,” says Pembina’s Erin Flanagan. “There is no solution and yet industry keeps adding ponds and increasing their size.”

Sarah Hechtenthal will keep watching out for the birds. And those scarecrows will continue to do their job. And the tailings ponds will continue to be a frightening hazard for a long time to come.